


(Bringing in the) Big Guns

by AMCanderly



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And somehow wound up introspective, BAMF Susan Pevensie, Gen, Howling Commandos - Freeform, Phil Coulson Has the Patience of a Saint, Things Nick Fury Regrets, This started out humorous, Very Loose Interpretations of Canon, Young clint barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 12:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12726681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMCanderly/pseuds/AMCanderly
Summary: Probationary Agent Clint Barton only has one more trial to surmount to fully join SHIELD:  Pass his arms range test.  Who better to test him than the most decorated marksman in the history of the organization?





	(Bringing in the) Big Guns

Phil Coulson had enough to deal with as one of Nick Fury's most trusted agents as is:

 

For one, despite having the highest rate of perfectly completed and filed mission reports and observations in the history of SHIELD, he was still weeks behind on paperwork.

 

Secondly, his apartment was covered in at least an inch of dust. Disgusting.

 

Literally the last thing he needed upon returning from a three-month undercover op was to find out that his most promising recruit (probably ever) had not made it past Probationary Agent status due to a truly (monumentally) dumb lack of oversight.

 

“How,” Coulson sighed, rubbing tiredly at his brow, “How on earth did you get Barton this far without having him finish his arms testing?”

 

Agent Jasper Sitwell, a relatively recent recruit that usually seemed fairly calm under pressure, scratched his neck nervously. “I mean... is this a trick question?”

 

Phil nibbled at his slice of rhubarb pie and sighed again. “You know the protocols. He should have been tested during his first month. It's been three.”

 

Sitwell shrugged. “I honestly figured he didn't need to be tested. You're aware of his capabilities. Is that not why you recruited him?”

 

“Trust me, we are all well aware of Barton's capabilities. That doesn't mean that he's beyond standard protocol.”

 

“Then send him down to the range. What's stopping you?”

 

Coulson sent him a withering look. “Have you not read the training file I gave you?”

 

“Of course I did.”

 

A beat.

 

Coulson's face didn't move.

 

“Well, I mostly did?”

 

Sitwell stuffed some corned beef into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

 

Another beat.

 

“I skimmed.”

 

“If you had read the document I prepared for you, you would realize that the agent giving the final testing has to be of equal or better skill to the trainee. Normally, this would not be an issue. However, Barton is an outlier.”

 

Jasper blanched. “Oh god, he's _the_ outlier. I didn't-”

 

“No, you didn't. And now you've learned an important lesson about paying attention to details, even when you don't think they matter. Now we need to fix this mess quickly, because I need him in Prague next week. Do you know how impossible it will be to find a qualified active agent?”

 

“... highly unlikely?”

 

“Try literally impossible. I brought it up with Fury this morning and he's pulling strings to bring an Agent out of retirement for this.” Phil neatened up his files and tossed a few dollars on the Formica tabletop. He gracefully slid out of the booth and made it several steps to the door before pausing. “By the way, her fee will be coming out of your overtime for this month, as punishment for the fact that we could have had Barton out and in the field by now.”

 

Sitwell's head thunked onto the table in front of him. “Of course it is.”

 

He frowned.

 

“Wait, we have retired agents?”

 

“When you're Susan Jones, you do what you want regardless of state secrets.”

 

Jasper scrambled onto his feet. “Wait, who?”

 

Phil smirked.

 

“You should recognize the name. Half of our marksmanship and range records are hers.”

 

* * *

 

The range master took a sip of tea, wrinkled her nose, then sighed and took another. Clint awkwardly stood at attention while she repeated the process with the small plate of biscuits. Where had SHIELD even gotten that tea set from? Did they just keep it on hand for occasions like this? Also, why was somebody clearly old enough to be his grandmother administering his range test? Was there some kind of lost bet involved? Or was SHIELD just looking to make an even bigger joke out of this whole arms testing debacle? The range master finished her biscuit and dabbed daintily at her lips before pinning Clint with intelligent brown eyes.

 

“Mr. Barton, my name is Mrs. Jones. You may call me Susan. I'll be administering your arms testing for today.”

 

Clint felt his spine stiffen suddenly for some inexplicable reason.

 

She tsked. “Oh, _do_ stand at ease. I've been retired from SHIELD for fifteen years now.”

 

She spoke with a crisp English accent, alternating between gentle, soothing calm and hints of underlying steel. Clint suddenly understood the flowery simile of wielding one's voice like a blade.

 

He shuffled a little on his feet and cleared his throat hesitantly. “Permission to speak, ma'am?”

 

She raised an eyebrow in response. “Susan, please. And yes, of course, permission granted.”

 

“Susan, then. Uhhh, pardon my being a bit blunt, but why would Fury need to pull an agent out of retirement... fifteen years of it... to give some newbie a range test? I mean, not to sound like a douche but when it comes to this, well, I'm the best at what I do.”

 

Susan nodded. “That is, in fact, the exact reason Director Fury asked me here today. Due to some ridiculous bureaucratic nonsense, agents can only do their range tests if administered by somebody as good or preferably better than them in skill. When it comes to skill in terms of active agents, you are unparalleled. However, when you expand that pool...” She trailed off and gestured to the screens lining the walls of the range behind her. Clint had never paid attention to them before, but he certainly did so now. They were all of the range records spanning SHIELD's existence, and at the top of nearly every list, and often listed multiple times, was the name Agent S. Jones.

 

He looked back at her and cataloged several things he hadn't noticed before, like the muscles in her arms and shoulders and the calluses on her hands. One sleeve of her white blouse had ridden up a little, revealing an archer's arm guard. Suddenly she seemed much less harmless than she had before.

 

Clint tilted his head. “How did you do that?”

 

He realized as he was saying it that what he meant was not at all clear, but she seemed to at least understand the gist. She gave him a wry smile.

 

“Darling, I was an agent for over thirty years. And lately I've found it much more fun to play at the gentle grandmotherly type before going for somebody's throat. You do the same thing, do you not? I'd imagine you've caught some flak from the other recruits in your class. Perhaps one of the idiots who came here from the CIA thought that you were, pardon the vernacular, some 'dumbass carnie hick.' From the reports I've read, you seem to encourage the view. That's good. It draws their attention away from you as the bigger threat. They think that you are an arrow that they will eventually be able to point at evildoers or some similar nonsense. What people like that never seem to remember though, is that you are an archer as well as a sniper, and that means that at any given moment you are doing complex calculations regarding wind speed, trajectory, velocity, and a million other factors to say the least. You are, at the heart of things, a better tactician than they will ever hope to be.  They all stand too close, while you see things better from a distance.”

 

Clint thought that maybe this was the first time in his life that he was ever truly speechless.

 

Susan waved away his sudden awe.

 

“Alright, now I'd wager my husband and his friends are all enjoying a lovely bourbon in Director Fury's office and I'd truly regret missing out on something from his liquor collection. Let's get this test over with. I've laid out a spread of thirteen weapons that you'll need to assemble, load, fire all rounds, then disassemble. You may complete this in any order that you please, Mr. Barton.”

 

She then sat back down and sipped patiently at her tea. Clint stood there dumbfounded for a moment more before moving assuredly to the nearest weapon station. The test itself wound up being both fun and surprisingly challenging. Susan had left each weapon disassembled for him to begin with and had swapped out a few parts between weapons. It honestly felt a little bit more like a scavenger hunt than a test.

 

He arrived at the farthest station for his last weapon, frowned a little, and couldn't stop himself from exclaiming, “Wait, what?”

 

Sitting before him was an unstrung old school English Longbow. Clint had used them before, but generally tended to stick to his compound or (occasionally) recurve bows if given the option. This just seemed... odd.

 

She smiled a little. “Humor me.”

 

He shrugged and strung the bow, taking a second to orient himself before nocking his first arrow. He loosed five in total, hitting the target square in the forehead, then the throat, the heart, and just to show off, one in each eye. He unstrung the bow and placed it back in front of him before rolling his shoulder a hair. It really had been a while since he had shot without a compound.

 

Susan glanced down at a small tablet, then stood and smiled. “Congratulations, Agent Barton. You have officially passed your range test and are no longer a probationary agent. You've also broken most of my range records. Mind you, you missed it by a hair on the longbow, but I imagine you'll break that soon enough. Heaven knows you'll beat my compound and recurve records quite handily. That was truly lovely though. I'd hoped to trip you up a little by changing things from your norm. I must say, you rose to the occasion admirably.”

 

Clint froze. “I didn't break the longbow record?”

 

She made her way to his side, where her soft smile bloomed into a full on smirk. She neatly folded her sleeves back, then strung the bow. She reached under the counter and pulled out five more arrows, then expertly shot each one exactly where Clint had aimed his, even nicking the arrow between the target's eyes.

 

“Mind you,” She began as she unstrung the bow, “I learned on a longbow when I was only a little girl and I find myself using it more now that I only shoot recreationally, so I have a bit of an advantage there.”

 

Clint glanced back at the grainy display screens, quickly finding the longbow records. C. Barton-1993 had supplanted the S. Jones-1954 in the second place slot.  He glanced up a the first place slot, then paused.

 

“S. Pevensie-1949.” He read aloud. “Wasn't that the year SHIELD was founded?”

 

Susan stepped up next to him, looking pensive. “Yes. Peggy was having a hard time convincing Howard and his friends to recruit me, even after all the work I did in France during the war. I think he was a little concerned because I was only twenty-one at the time, and had just lost my family in a train accident. I was so angry at the world. He agreed to put me through several trials and the arms range was the final test. I went through all the weapons he had set out for me without a hitch. After I finished, he told me that while I was an excellent shot, he was still worried about my situation and told me to come back after I had taken some time.  I had brought my old bow to the testing with me. I shot the cork off his handle of whiskey as he was picking it up to open it. Pegs fell off her chair laughing, and it was a close call for the others. I've never seen a man so simultaneously delighted and unnerved. He admitted that might have been a little patronizing and I was voted in.”

 

She broke off to laugh a little.

 

“We all had a celebratory toast to my recruitment, and that's how I met my Gabe.”

 

Clint's head whipped towards her. “Jones. You married Gabe Jones.”

 

Her lips pursed. “They tend to leave that out of the history books. It was highly scandalous back in the day, and not just because he was eight years older than me.”

 

“I can imagine.”

 

They sat in companionable silence for a second before Clint looked at her mischievously.

 

“You said your husband and his friends are probably drinking with Fury right now?”

 

“Oh, indubitably. I saw Dugan and Morita on my way in, and I guarantee Pegs was not far behind.”

 

“What if I told you I had a way in and out of his office without being noticed?”

 

Susan smiled and linked her arm with his companionably.

 

“I'd say those layabouts don't deserve a nice drink nearly as much as we do after a hard afternoon at work.”

 

The two made their way out of the range, Barton detailing his three month exploration of the bases' vents while Susan chimed in with her knowledge about camera placement.

 

From the hidden observation room above the range, Phil Coulson sighed heavily and signed the forms confirming Barton's status as a full-fledged agent. He then started gathering up his paperwork and coffee, only stopping to glance at the range record listings and the abandoned table full of tea and biscuits below.

 

“Fury is going to regret this, isn't he.”

 

“You know,” the vent above him said conversationally, “I think he just might.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been developing this Darcy Lewis-centric 'verse for NaNoWriMo, and I made a one-off reference about Susan Pevensie being a SHIELD Agent. (There are some truly excellent fics out there that already use this idea.  
> You should look for them. So Delightful.) Anyway, this derailed my original intent and this idea was basically all I could think or write about and now I have a whole headcanon with Susan as SHIELD's most decorated marksman/one of its most accomplished agents running through my head.


End file.
